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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

> Stephen K. Bannon – President Trump granted a full pardon to Stephen Bannon. Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project. Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen.

This one is hilarious. The "political project" was raising money for a border wall via crowdfunding and putting it into his own pocket. He scammed the most hardcore Trump supporters, and got pardoned by Trump for it.

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I've seen some legal opinions that the pardon doesn't matter that much since he could apparently be tried on a state level anyways.

You should recite the facts correctly. Supposedly, Bannon represented to the public that 100% of donated funds were going to build the wall. In fact, prosecuters allege that ‘hundreds of thousands’ were diverted to pay Banon’s personal bills. That’s out of 25 million raised.

He still stole and he's still a criminal. What are you trying to prove here

What part of what I said was incorrect?

> Bannon and another defendant, Brian Kolfage, allegedly promised donors that the campaign, which raised more than $25 million, was "a volunteer organization" and that "100% of the funds raised ... will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose," according to the indictment.

> Instead, according to prosecutors, Bannon, through a nonprofit under his control, allegedly used more than $1 million from We Build the Wall to "secretly" pay Kolfage and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal expenses.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/steve-bannon-pardone...

According to the unsealed indictment, bannon received $1m through a non-profit, which he used to transfer to pay for unrelated shit using fake invoices.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1306611...

Oh yeah, he only stole a million dollars of people's money, not the full 25 million. It's so unfair to pursue him!

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